Collection
by Fluehatraya
Summary: A collection of story beginnings and oneshots for Detective Conan and Magic Kaito. Nineteenth up: Even Giants Must Awake: Kaito doesn't remain down for long.
1. Project Shinigami

**Disclaimer: I do not own Detective Conan.**

**Warning: Supernatural AU**

Oneshot One

Project Shinigami

"Director, we have found it." a man strode with a quick clip to his step into the office as the sliding door slid open with a soft pneumatic hiss, and the clacking of polished ebony shoes on sleek tile was muffled as foot met tasteful rug as he approached the wide desk set near the opposite wall of the room.

"Found what?" the Director said curtly, not even looking up as he skimmed through the ream of papers that he held, thick fingers flicking through the pages disinterestedly.

"The Shinigami." the visitor's pride was clear in his smug tone, like the cat that had caught the canary; and indeed, his only response was the sharp sound of a sudden intake of breath. Typically such a tone wouldn't sit well with the Director, but a subordinate's hubris was to be shunted to the side – not forgotten, but not bearing importance in the immediate moment – in favor of the news.

Slowly, deliberately, the Director lowered the papers he held onto the desk and swiveled his chair to face forward fully.

"The perfect result of Project Shinigami went missing years ago, and the project was suspended indefinitely. What makes you think that it would show up after over a decade after every trail we had went cold?" his voice was like steel: smooth and sharpened to a razor's edge, ready to strike the killing blow whenever ready.

"Because of this." the subordinate crowed, flaunting the papers he was carrying with a flourish of an arm before coming to the edge of the desk and slapping them down onto its lacquered surface. The Director glanced from the papers to the man, and back to the papers. Then he reached over and snagged them, his eyes flicking back and forth as he read their contents. He paused as he gazed over several photographs, taking note of the dates they were taken.

"And it looks exactly the same as it did back then?" he finally asked as he finished reading through the report.

"Yes. Save for the glasses, he's exactly the same right down to that stupid little cowlick of his. Subject also displays an exceedingly advanced intellect and mature emotional grasp for his apparent age. Any former aliases of his are unknown, but he currently goes by the name of Edogawa Conan, the ward of 'Sleeping Detective' Mouri Kogoro and his daughter, Mouri Ran. Neither of them had any connection with him until around a year past, suggesting that the subject is being aided by another party of sorts; one that could potentially know its true nature."

"It, Tsuneyoshi. The subject may be male genetically, but remember that this being is nothing more than a weapon. It would not do to humanize it any further than exposure to the outside world has surely corrupted its initial purpose." the Director chastised, and the subordinate – Tsuneyoshi – nodded.

"Sir, why does he, _it_, appear to be the same age as before?" Tsuneyoshi then ventured.

"Probably a side effect. Is it not ironic that the bringer of death be immortal in its own right? Of course, we won't know for sure until we reacquire it and perform an extensive series of tests . . ." the Director trailed off, lost in thought. Tsuneyoshi nodded once more and then retreated out of the office, bowing out as he left.

"Edogawa Conan . . . your past and future cannot remain hidden from us forever. We will have you yet, our Shinigami."

**LINE BREAK**

Shinichi sighed as he took his time with his test. You would think a high school student trapped in the body of a primary school student would be able to rush through something like this, but no. To keep up the façade of being the seven or eight year old (he wasn't actually sure as to his precise age) that he appeared to be, he had to take his time with something even like this, so as to not arouse suspicion. He used this time to check his handwriting, making sure that it was written in an unsteady hand and that no words slipped into his writing that a child his apparent age wouldn't know.

But actually, the last question of the test was stumping him, believe it or not.

_Recall a happy memory from when you were younger and write about it._

Shinichi remembered having to answer this same question back when he was in grade one for the first time. At the time it had stumped him, and he had come to a realization that had rocked his world when even that young: he couldn't remember anything before shortly transferring into the elementary school when the school year had already been in session for a couple of months. Back then, it had frightened him, made him feel lost. As he had grown up he had come to accept that he had absolutely no memory of those missing childhood years, and had mostly pushed it out of mind.

He still didn't know anything that had gone on in those missing years, and his parents always refused to speak about it. The shrunken detective idly wondered if he was repressing a bad memory. Then a glance at the clock revealed that the class period was almost over. Right, he still had the test to complete, and even if it was just elementary school he wasn't going to fail some stupid test.

Shinichi scrawled out a couple of generic sentences about a trip to Hawaii with his parents and turned the test in to the teacher at the front, returning to and seating himself at his desk once more.

Bored, he traced the grain of the wood for a few moments, and then had to stifle a yawn. He had been up most of the night, aiding the police and Kogoro with the poisonings at a restaurant they had gone out to dinner at. It had been a particularly tricky case, but the culprit had been found in the end and the status quo returned to normal, as always.

There was still some time left, resting his eyes wouldn't hurt . . .

The fun-sized detective soon found himself asleep.

**LINE BREAK**

_He was floating, and the world all around him was blurry. Despite his impediment in seeing though, he could still make out the forms of people, some of which were only vaguely humanoid. One of them was sitting at a nearby desk, writing and pausing to talk to the person with hair reminiscent to a pineapple's leaves that sat beside him. He seemed to be listening and taking notes to what he had to say._

_It did not take long before one by one everybody shuffled out, save for the writer. He eventually left his workplace also, but did not vacate the room. Rather, he approached Shinichi, a toothy smile bared on his face._

"_You have no idea, but you're going to make this world better for all the people of Japan. The Otherfolk community may get their feathers – or fur, whatever – all ruffled about this, but they don't realize that this benefits them as much as us." he said in a monologue, not seeming to actually speak to Shinichi. This left him confused; what did he mean?_

_The man left after that and the room went dark. Shinichi remained suspended where he was, and for some reason he had no inclination to leave. Even he thought this odd, considering how usually he would be inspecting every nook and cranny._

_He wasn't alone for long, though. A lone figure slunk into the room, glancing about his furtively before finding seemingly nothing to be worried about. His walk became more confident, and he neared Shinichi. Although difficult to tell with everything being blurry, while he wore almost all white like the people in the room before had, the cut of his wardrobe was different: sleeker, pinched and sharp._

"_Don't worry; I'm getting you out of here. You will be a person, a son with a mother and father. Even though this is our first meeting, I can see something of my own son in you." the man smiled warmly, at Shinichi, and he couldn't help but feel soothed by his presence. The man reached down, somewhere in front and below where Shinichi floated and . . ._

Suddenly the world started shaking, and the word 'Conan' blared from nowhere. Startled, Shinichi jolted up, yelping as the back of his head collided with someone else's.

"Ouch!" Ayumi cried, stumbling back away from Shinichi.

"Finally!" Genta shouted.

"We've been trying to wake you up for minutes!" Mitsuhiko chimed in.

"Ah, wha?" Shinichi asked intelligently.

"It's lunchtime!" Genta explain with enthusiasm, attention now focused on his bento box.

"Right . . ." Shinichi slowly returned to reality, frowning as he tried to grasp at the vestiges of the dream that he'd had, only for it to slip through his metaphorical fingers like smoke. After a moment of trying to recollect it he decided that it wasn't important, and instead reached for the bento that Ran had made him inside of his backpack.

Somehow though, he had the feeling that it was important, and it was frustrating him. It wasn't the first time he'd had the notion, either. But he could never figure out what it was, and since it didn't seem to have any bearing on anything he eventually let it be, as he did his forgotten childhood.

**LINE BREAK**

**Author's Note:**

**Right, so this is actually the first thing that I have ever written for Detective Conan, and it's honestly intimidating writing for a new fandom like this. Anyway, the basic idea of this story is that there exists a supernatural community right under the nose of the human one (how original *sarcasm*) and not many humans know that it exists. As it so happens, an organization was working on a joint project with the Otherfolk (the politically correct term that the supernatural beings are known as collectively) to create the ultimate weapon: Shinigami, a being who would bring death through its mere presence. However, Shinigami was kidnapped right out of the facility and they lost all track of it. Only ten years later have they rediscovered their lost project in the form of Edogawa Conan, who they don't know is actually Kudo Shinichi, and believe is at the very least unaging because of the fact that he still appears to be around seven years old as he did roughly a decade ago. Wow, sorry for the long author's note; these story beginnings tend to allude to a lot of information that, since the story is likely never to be fully developed, I have to explain in an author's note.**


	2. Inquiry Unanswered

**Disclaimer: I do not own Detective Conan/Case Closed.**

Oneshot Two

Inquiry Unanswered

A certain matter had been bothering Shinichi for a while. He had been pushing it to the back of his mind, since it was not as pertinent when compared to the many others things on the shrunken detective's plate. Now though it was a rare lazy weekend afternoon, and he had been dumped by Ran at Agasa-hakase's house for babysitting. Aforementioned professor was currently adjusting Shinichi's shoes, leaving Shinichi alone with Ai.

"Hey, Haibara," he began, receiving a noncommittal grunt of acknowledgment from the scientist, who was currently engrossed in her own work.

"Where did the mass of our older bodies go to?"

Ai stopped at once and her back grew rigid. Shinichi watched with a raised eyebrow as she slowly turned to face him, a shadow snuffing the light out of her eyes and leaving her looking haunted.

"Trust me; you do not want to know."

Before Shinichi could respond to that the little scientist hopped off of the stool she had been sitting on and hurried out of the room, leaving the other shrunken teen alone.

Well, that was disconcerting, Shinichi reflected with a troubled expression. He really could not think of anything that could freak the former-Sherry out that much save for the Black Organization. The teen detective groaned with the realization that his morbid curiosity had been piqued, and he just had to know the answer to his question. With a sigh he headed off after Ai.

**Author's Note: I plan to upload something more substantial soon. This has just been niggling at me for a few hours now.**


	3. Thrown to the Lions

**Disclaimer: I do not own Detective Conan/Case Closed.**

Oneshot Three

Thrown to the Lions

Facing off the four lions in the arena, the only barrier between them and Ran, Conan wondered how it was that he got into these messes. It had just been a trip to the circus, a Mouri plus freeloader outing due to Ran's wheedling of her father.

Of course, then somebody was murdered. Conan could not see why Kogoro and Ran ever took him anywhere, seeing as these kinds of things always happened whenever they did so. What was more, the suspect had made a break for it and in the chaos of the ensuing chase somebody had accidentally knocked Ran into the arena, right into the midst of the lions that had been left there from when their performance had been abruptly ended. So the shrunken detective had jumped in after her, no question about it.

With grim determination, Conan picked up the small stool and the whip that had been abandoned. Fortunately his father had taught him lion-taming in Hawaii.

**AN: 'Cause Shinichi/Conan has learned how to do **_**everything**_** in Hawaii from his father. Except for singing, that is. And no, I don't know anything about lion-taming . . . yet. I'll get my break one day. **


	4. Kaitou KID and the Philosopher's Stone

**Disclaimer: I own neither the Harry Potter series nor Magic Kaito.**

Oneshot Four

Kaitou KID and the Philosopher's Stone

Harry's eyes widened as something black and vaporous billowed past him, a sound like a frustrated scream carried on rushing wind accompanying it. Unnerved but remaining resolute in his task, the young wizard nevertheless carried on into the final chamber, bracing himself for whatever harrowing trial awaited him there.

Much to his surprise, the place was empty save for lit, bracket-held torches, the Mirror of Erised, and Professor Quirrell. That was an even bigger surprise (and here he had been expecting it to be Snape or Voldemort; how was he supposed to feel about this?), and striding forward with trepidation, Harry found that the man would not stir at all with his approach. Now closer, he carefully inspected the prone form, grimacing at the agonized expression frozen on his face and the mutilated flesh glimpsed from underneath the unraveled turban.

Before Harry could further ponder this unusual development, and inevitably have the conclusion that there was a _dead body_ in front of him, a square of bright white held in Quirrell's grasp caught his attention. The boy worried his lower lip, before hesitantly reaching over and wrenching it from the tight grip. To his surprise, it was a short message, with a little doodle in the lower right corner.

_Kaitou KID was here, and I have taken the Philosopher's Stone._

Blinking, Harry could only wonder who Kaitou KID was and, even more importantly, what his intention with the magical jewel was.

"Harry," a familiar voice came from behind, and he turned around with relief as he saw Dumbledore walking up to him. Wordlessly, he held the card out to the headmaster, who read it before quirking a wry smile.

"Ah yes, I was wondering if he would make true the promise of his heist card. Never fear, Harry, Flamel's stone is in trustworthy hands."

"Err, sir?"

"Come with me to the Hospital Wing and I will answer your questions," Dumbledore said with mirth still twinkling in his eyes, igniting Harry's curious nature. Who was Kaitou KID and why did the elderly wizard trust him?

**AN: I was just thinking about something (I honestly can't remember what), and then somehow realized that the Philosopher's Stone makes an elixir, and Pandora cries tears. Of course, they don't match up all that well, but who's to say that the legend of Pandora didn't get warped over time and distance? Not to mention it would have ruined this little plunny. If you're wondering about the beginning, that's Voldemort abandoning Quirrell's body since the Stone is already out of Hogwarts by that point in time, since KID got to it first (of course XD).**

**In response to anonymous reviewer Nika Corpus: Yes, you may make the third installment of this collection into your own story. I look forward to reading it once you do. :)**


	5. Make That an Average of One a Day

**Disclaimer: I do not own Detective Conan.**

Oneshot Five

Make That an Average of One a Day

"What, a serial killer? How can you suspect a brat that young?" Kogoro hollered in disbelief.

"In the past three weeks Conan-kun has been present at twenty murders," deadpanned Inspector Megure.

". . . At least it's not an average of one a day?" offered Kogoro meekly, finding no good argument in light of that news. Come to think of it, murder cases did seem to be popping up even more than was typical for him to encounter as of late.

"The only reason it's not twenty-one is because Conan-kun was taken into our custody early yesterday, and has been there since."

Just then an officer burst into the room.

"Megure-keibu, one of the prisoners was found stabbed to death in his cell!" he exclaimed. A vein twitching in his forehead, Inspector Megure pinched the bridge of his nose and took a deep breath.

"And when was this?"

"Estimates range between ten and eleven last night, sir."

"And Conan-kun?"

"Err, you mean the boy? By the way, why the heck is he incarcerated in the first place, sir?"

"That's not important; what I want to know is if he has he been in his cell the entire time?" the inspector's tone was dark and bore no room for argument.

"Yes, the kid fell asleep at nine last night and is still slumbering, sir."

The inspector shot a glare at the detective he had been speaking with.

"Your ward may not be a murderer, but I'm damned convinced he has something to do with this. Have you ever considered taking him to an exorcist?"

With that parting shot, Megure exited through the door with the bemused officer. Coincidentally, the door being opened allowed a piercing shriek to reach their ears.

"Kyaaa! Rin-san has been strangled!"

**AN: Feel free to throw rotten fruit at me as I meekly offer drabbles as a paltry form of appeasement until I have enough time/motivation to write longer and more serious oneshots and chapter beginnings.**


	6. Clone

**Disclaimer: I do not own Detective Conan.**

Oneshot Six

Clone

"It all makes sense now! Why you're so similar to Shinichi!" Ran shouted as she burst through the entrance of the detective agency, attention latching onto Conan at once. The shrunken teen had thrown himself back from where he sat doing his kiddie homework in alarm, and Kogoro merely lazily raised his head to give Ran a glazed-over glance before allowing it to flop back onto his crossed arms, returning to his drunken snooze.

"You're his clone!"

. . .

"_Haaah?"_

**Line Break**

Ran was staring at him again. Conan squirmed under her scrutiny, the crackers that he had been snacking on losing their taste even when he forced himself to ignore the heavy gaze resting solidly on him. Things had been like this ever since Ran had found out that he was Shinichi's _clone_. Or at least, thought that she had things figured out. Conan wasn't going to dissuade her of this, knowing that if people came to their own conclusions they were not as likely to probe deeper.

Still, the constant stares were really starting to wear his nerves thin, especially whenever his sorta-girlfriend appeared to be lost in thought while doing so. Such as now. Suddenly Ran straightened up, her eyes widening as some epiphany dawned upon her.

"Conan-kun, if you're Shinichi's clone then why do you wear glasses? Shinichi doesn't need them," before Conan could respond, let alone think up an excuse on the spot, Ran snatched the glasses off of his face and held them up close in front of her own eyes.

"Hey, these lenses aren't real at all!" she exclaimed, much to Conan's consternation. Inwardly he was panicking, scrambling to come up with an excuse, and frankly enough his countenance was not much calmer. After a few more moments of examining the glasses – fortunately not finding the hidden devices it possessed or realizing that the glass was bulletproof (and wouldn't that take some explaining?) – she turned her attention back to Conan.

"_Conan-kun_, is there something you're not telling me?" Ran stressed Conan's fake name in a way he did not like, almost accusatory. Fortunately, her engrossment with the glasses had allowed him just enough time to come up with a viable excuse.

"They belonged to someone important to me! I had the lenses replaced since the old ones made everything weird and blurry!" Conan chirped, laying on the small child attitude that he knew his "big sister" had a weakness for. Sure enough, Ran visage relaxed, and a flicker of – guilt? – passed over her face for a moment. Then Ran smiled at her young charge.

"Eh, who was that?" curiosity tinged her tone.

"Eh, ah, it – it doesn't matter now. He's gone."

Inwardly, Conan winced. He had come up with the response on the spot, having half-expected to have to do so anyway, but now he would have to add more to his admittedly enigmatic backstory if further questions were asked.

Fortunately, Ran realized that she had hit upon what would have been a sensitive matter, had Conan not really been Shinichi. Her smile faltered, and then was forced into a slightly too-cheery one for the boy's sake.

"You should go along and play now. I'll clean up your dishes." with that said, Ran leaned over and carefully slid the spectacles back onto the child's nose and then drew back. After staring at Conan for a moment longer, she started picking up the dishes used for his snack. Eager to get away from Ran before she went back on a warpath investigating into him and developing further suspicions of his and Shinichi's connection, Conan needed no further prompting. He was on his feet in a moment and hurrying out the door of the detective agency with shouted word that he would be at Agasa-hakase's.

Ran strode into the kitchen and placed the plate and glass into the sink. Turning on the sink and picking up a bottle of soap and a washrag, she started pondering the mystery of one Edogawa Conan. Their brief conversation had caused her to realize that she really did not know much of his past at all. The precocious boy had just popped into her life one day and quickly became an immediate feature in it, as if to replace her wayward not-boyfriend.

As suds ran over her hands and made the adroit movements of her fingers slick as she washed the dishes that had piled up, a frown tugged the corners of Ran's lips down and she furrowed her brows as a few disturbing facts that she knew about Conan came to mind.

One, that he was actually a clone, and of her childhood friend. That had been a shocker when the results of her school biology project came back with that being discovered. Ran wondered if Shinichi even knew that the boy was his clone. Considering that Shinichi seemed very familiar with her charge, she deduced from this that yes, he did. For some reason he had been passing Conan off as his cousin. That made sense, since who would believe that he had a younger clone of himself if he ever claimed that? What had happened to that arrogant detective, that he had been cloned? Ran shuddered as she came to the conclusion that no, she probably did not want to know, that it had probably – _undoubtedly_ – been unethical _at best_, knowing the kind of trouble that Shinichi was prone to getting into willingly or not. She was pretty sure this had fallen under the latter, and the implications lingered like shadows around the edge of her mind, guaranteed to terrify should she delve too deep into them.

Determined not to continue down such a dark line of thought, Ran shook her head clear of it and moved on.

When had it happened? Ran was not the scientific sort, but from what she had heard of the cloning process the product – she cringed a moment later, noticing that the word she used dehumanized not only clones (although she had never heard of a successful human clone before Conan himself), but _Conan_ as he was one – developed at the normal rate of the species they were cloned from. Thus, Shinichi had to have been cloned several years ago back when he and she were preadolescents.

Conan being Shinichi's clone also explained so much that had been suspicious, if not just plain _off_. May fourth being Conan's birthday, why he had expressed no want for his parents despite their noticeable absence, why her risky donation of blood had been a surprising success . . .

But in place of this new understanding it was as if, concerning Conan, she had been wandering over a frozen pond covered by a snow drift, and only with the revelation of his true nature had some of the snow been cleared away to reveal the thin ice cracking beneath her feet. Underneath that fragile shell was frigid water . . . deadly and dark, a world of unknowns.

And for that matter, who was Edogawa Fumiyo; perhaps one of the creators of her charge? Conan didn't have any parents, of course. Conan's "mother" had come to take the boy she had come to care for as her own younger brother so suddenly, and he had not seemed eager at all to see her. Heck, that over-the-top reaction of his was probably genuine, and not just sulking as his "mother" had claimed! Acrid guilt ate at her stomach and sent it into knots as Ran realized just how much she had let Conan down. Just because he was a kid didn't mean that she couldn't take him seriously, especially with how mature he could show himself to be. She should have known better than to take the word of a complete stranger at face value like that!

Well, whoever she was, she hadn't been able to take Conan back for long. That was a relief, although Ran still worried her lower lip as she scrubbed at a tenacious spot of sauce sticking on one of the plates she was cleaning.

Still, although the imposter's attempt had somehow been thwarted (and Ran was determined to get that story from the boy clone sooner or later, no matter how much wheedling she had to do), how many others remained that had something to do with Conan's existence? Creating a human clone would demand who knew how many people collaborating to produce such an end result, in addition to whatever child-rearing they would then have to go through. Conan had mentioned an important person, so there was at least one more . . .

. . . even though that important person was 'gone'. A shudder wracked Ran's form and the plate she held escaped from her slippery fingers and clattered loudly into the sink. The connotation was not a good one.

These people, whoever they were, were dangerous, weren't they? Ran had encountered far too many criminals than was what should be normal for a high school girl, even one with a detective as outstanding as her father, but this was unlike anything she had ever been caught up in before. If there was any way to describe the epiphany, it was like suddenly discovering that sharks were circling one just out of sight in the gloom of water below.

There was no doubt in her mind that they were dangerous. If nothing else would convince Ran, the fact that Conan had never once balked at the sight of a corpse since she knew him would. Why had she never thought this through before, never questioned how it was that a child could be raised to the point that a dead body would not upset them! Obviously, poor Conan must have been faced with corpses before he had come to live with her and her father, there was no other way that he could have been so desensitized to them.

Ran smacked a fist into the upward-facing palm of her other hand, sending a spray of water at her face that she did not even flinch at due to having found her resolution. That was it, she would help Conan whether he wanted it or not and see to it that this mysterious organization would meet its end!

**Line Break**

**AN: Of course, Shinichi is now going to have to bluff more to add to his identity as Conan, newly-exposed "clone" while Ran, in the process of looking for something that isn't actually there, will end up stumbling upon the Black Organization and making a whole mess of things for everyone. And by everyone, I mean **_**everyone**_**. Not that I'm going to continue this anytime soon or anything . . . But seriously, clone makes **_**so much more sense**_** than "shrunken best friend/not-boyfriend". Pssh.**


	7. Fisher with No Bait

**Disclaimer: I do not own Detective Conan.**

Oneshot Seven

Fisher with No Bait

Hit the floor, heavy bodily thud. Grunt and roll, a metallic flash and a knife is embedded in the floorboards where he had just been. Rising shakily, knees like loose-screwed hinges that threaten to buckle. No can do, must remain standing. Poised to flight, coiled tension of muscles to spring.

A sing-song voice, hideously dragged out as if with resisting claws hooked to the smoke-scarred throat. Words cross the distance, muddled beyond recognition, meaningless regardless of whether they are comprehensible or not.

Taste of rust in mouth, spit it out to no avail, chokes any words to be said. No breath to spare.

Condemnation in the barrel of a gun at his head, sleek monochrome utilitarianism, paints only with red. Abyss in the jade eyes staring into his own, seeing his reflection with lightless eyes like still water staring back. It is not a mirror he can shatter, paint the fluorescent-lit white tiles red and cast aside the shards like a fisherman reeling for hope.

Blade-toothed smile arranged like a cemetery fixated on him, wonders if his grave will be added to those ivory ranks.

No, cannot be, will not be. He is already a ghost; what fear did he have of death?

Feints to the side right before a crack of thunder sounds, feels autumn in the form of the knife nick his arm. Blood, the red of a leaf's leave with a bang, trickles down and paints his hand. Superficial like his porcelain skin, it matters not, mortality abandoned for Prophecy of what was and will be, time looped and his soul stretched along a Mobius strip rack.

The raven crows with carrion-feasting delight, the smoke of battlefields it gleefully beheld lit with fires-metal-passing of humanity-BLOOD STAINING SKIN UNTIL ALL MEN ARE PAINTED AS DEMONS embodied in its harsh cries like Ankou driving his cart along misty lanes, skeletons rattling the brittle cold iron bars of their cages to his indifference, calling out pleads and warnings to the mortals that walk through mist and do not see. A werewolf comfortably ensconced in human skin, striding leisurely among the Men that it does not remember ever being, had it ever.

Strike of silver, swift as a bullet. The gun falls and the werewolf curls inward on itself, gloating giving way to snarls that now bear as much threat as a sheep's bleating. Fingers curl into claws, shedding pretense even as beasts cannot resist the perfume of the flowers, the bobbing of a wan lantern drifting over a salty river. They scrabble futilely against the bullet that holds fast to its form, and the boy-ghost-of-a-man-that-once-was bears the assault modeled after a martyr, allowing the blood he spilled with his enemy's weapon to cover him, color his porcelain skin the red of strontium salt fire, cover his front entirely.

Even though the ebbing of life's tides leaves him cold and without water to fish in, he remains like this, allows the paint to dull to rust, leaving him as tarnished silver.

The Angel comes too late and now not even she can save him. Nor would he let her, lest in his desperate vying for her salvation he tear her feathers out and drag her Down with him. He accepted his crown and place as the sovereign of fishers, and although the smarter martyr does not die, the wise would gladly.

**AN: An experimental attempt at blending my original story-writing style with the coherence of my fanfiction which the former usually does not possess. Writing this felt so good, it makes the awkwardness and ashen taste of how I typically write fanfiction all the more acute. This was about Gin and Conan and with Ran at the end, in case that wasn't clear.**


	8. Calling the Reaper

**Disclaimer: I do not own Detective Conan or Magic Kaito.**

Oneshot Eight

Calling the Reaper

Saguru scowled as he browsed through the contacts list on Kaito's cellphone, searching for any incriminating evidence pointing to him being Kaitou KID as the text message conversations that were stored on the mobile device revealed nothing.

. . . It wasn't stealing if the obnoxious magician had dropped it when performing a magic trick for Aoko on their walk back home together and hadn't noticed its loss.

Unfortunately, Kaito's contacts yielded nothing but the usual.

Hold on. Saguru blinked in disbelief as he saw one of the entries. _Death?_

Now that was just ridiculous, probably just another example of Kaito's idea of a joke.

Still . . . his thumb hovered over the call button. Morbid curiosity to see who the thief would label with a name battled with a niggling doubt that perhaps he really shouldn't do this. A few moments later and the former won, and so came down the thumb.

The contact didn't take long to answer.

"Who is this and how did you get this number?" a disgruntled child's voice met Saguru, and it took him only a couple seconds to match it to Edogawa Conan's, that precocious child. Scratch that, _disconcerting child_. The encounters he had had with the boy had more than interested him enough to look up more information on the boy, and all of the murder cases and Conan's role in them were more than freaky. It didn't help that it was around the detective-in-the-making that Saguru had run into some of the most bizarre and convoluted homicides.

"Hello?"

Realizing that he was still connected, Saguru hung up and continued staring at the phone's screen for a few moments longer. Perhaps Death wasn't that far off from the truth.

Then, an epiphany: why would Kuroba Kaito have Conan's number? The latter had certainly had many run-ins with Kaitou KID, but not with "amateur high school magician" Kuroba Kaito to Saguru's knowledge. Now if only he could find something more solid to oust the phantom thief's identity.

Perhaps the boy detective would be interested in aiding him in such an endeavor?

Now there was an idea.

Then again . . . Saguru preferred keeping murders out of his daily life. He was really quite sane in that respect.

Perhaps a cup of tea would be conducive to weighing out the pros and cons of making a deal with the reaper. Yes, that sounded good.

**AN: It would be so awesome to see Conan and Saguru team up and put pressure on Kaito. Shrunken teen (who is also a detective) and teen detective; together, they fight crime! *Is shot***


	9. The Wolf

**Disclaimer: I do not own any recognizable intellectual property.**

**Oneshot Nine, "The Wolf," has been uploaded as its own story as of June 20, 2013.**

**Excerpt:**

The thief blinked, and in that interval of sightlessness the creature had crossed the distance between them in a single bound of powerful legs and was now descending upon his form.

He saw a slathering, gaping maw lined with teeth like scimitars bearing down upon him. Above it were jaundiced eyes that rolled madly, luminescent in the glow of yonder streetlights and set against a backdrop of bristling black fur like harvest moons.

Kaito's scream was choked out of him as his back collided heavily with the hard ground, knocking the breath out of his lungs. He wheezed and gasped, struggling to draw air into his airways – feeling constricted as if caught in a vise – as red and black stars bloomed in his vision. He winced as paws with dexterous fingerlike toes clamped painfully down upon his shoulders, and the thief could feel large claws pierce his skin and burrow into muscle for a tenacious grip.


	10. A Nakamori Dinner

**Disclaimer: I do not own Magic Kaito or Detective Conan.**

Oneshot Ten

A Nakamori Dinner

Kaito was surprised when Aoko invited him over for dinner that night, which was an unusual occurrence. Unless they were working on an assignment together, finding a time that worked out for both of them could be difficult.

"What's the occasion?" Kaito asked, leaning further back in his chair with his legs propped up on the desk in front of him.

"Mom is back," although Aoko spoke quietly, her beaming smile and tone of voice getting across her delight.

The chair and its occupant went crashing to the floor clanging and with a loud thud, attracting the attention of the few other students in the classroom.

"I thought she was dead!" exclaimed the teenage thief, gaping from the floor at his childhood friend.

"There's no need to advertise it! Besides, I suppose she has been gone for a long time," Aoko's expression changed to an almost nervous one as she shuffled her feet awkwardly.

"That's great! Of course I'll come over! Does your mom still make that great spaghetti?"

**Line Break**

Later that evening found Kaito entering the Nakamori household without hesitation, jubilantly announcing his arrival. He paused in the foyer, taking in the smell of the familiar residence. It mostly smelled like spaghetti sauce at the moment – a meaty one, he inferred by the scent – but underneath that, along with the usual smells of the house, there was a very strange, not too pleasant one that he couldn't quite place a finger on. In fact, the only thing, or rather person, that came to mind in correlation to it was Tantei-kun, and unless him being Kaitou KID had been discovered and this was a trap to arrest him he was pretty sure he wouldn't find the shrunken detective here of all places.

"Kaito, you got here just in time," Aoko approached him as he was taking his shoes off, "dinner has just been set. Mom said that we can go ahead and eat without her; she still has to . . . take care of some things in the kitchen," Kaito raised an eyebrow at the discretion Aoko was displaying in her speech, and almost made to pester her about it before deciding to just ignore it. It probably wasn't important, and hey, the spaghetti was getting colder every second that he wasn't eating it.

Following his childhood friend into the sitting area, Kaito greeted her father with a jaunty grin and sat down at the table.

"It's been a while since you've been around, Kaito-kun," Nakamori Ginzo said to him, relaxed as he started digging into his plate of spaghetti. It had been a while since he didn't have to help in dinner preparations on one of his nights off.

"Hehe, yeah, but I've been busy with school and working on my magic, you know?" Well, the Inspector never saw much more than a little sleight-of-hand from Kuroba Kaito, but he was all too familiar with the growing evermore dramatic and varied tricks of Kaitou KID.

"It's good that you're pursuing a dream so enthusiastically; I'm sure you'll turn out like your father," this was the reply, broken up in-between mouthfuls of noodles.

Kaito nodded, but his eyes flickered to the kitchen threshold where he could hear the sounds of pots and utensils clattering, mind elsewhere. It was wonderful that Aoko's mother really wasn't dead and was with them once more, but a part of him that he was uncomfortable with wished that it was his gone parent instead.

"Hey, don't you dare start!" Aoko chided her friend.

"Huh?"

"You were doing that thing again, where you become withdrawn and unresponsive," she scowled, "it's been happening a lot this year. I'm starting to think you hit your head and it addled your brains. Not that they weren't already."

"Hey!" he objected at the quip, but snapped out of his reverie started in on his own meal with relish, all the while ignoring the way the corners of the inspector's lips were twitching upwards as if keeping a smile in check. Which he probably was.

He hadn't been eating for long before he stopped, expression disbelieving and more than a touch disgusted.

"Aoko?" Kaito asked, hesitantly prodding his spaghetti with his fork before casting an askance glance over in the kitchen's direction. Aoko's mom was still in there, and he could hear water running. If he strained, Kaito thought that he could even detect hoarse mumbling.

"Hm?"

"I found an ear in my spaghetti," with no prudent way to say it he had just blurted it out. Not even waiting for Aoko to reply, he made a face and gingerly pinched the offending object up between two fingers to show it. Sure enough, it was a human ear, encrusted with a bit of bodily fluids and traces of rot around where it had been severed from the head it came from.

Aoko took one look at it before twisting in her seat to face the kitchen, where she cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted, "Mom! You dropped one of your ears into the spaghetti!"

"An ear. _An ear,"_ by this point a severe disconnect between reality and Kaito was going on.

"Mm, I've found a couple of fingers in my dish," Ginzo turned his head to face his daughter, who had returned to sitting completely forwards, "this is why either you or I do still most of the cooking."

"I guess cooking just isn't something that should be left to zombies," Aoko concurred.

"AN EAR."

**OMAKE:**

"Dad, where were you! And what smells?" Ran demanded as her father stepped into the agency long after he had said that he and Conan would get back.

"Sorry, sorry! Another case happened that required my expertise. As for the stench, blame the brat," Kogoro stepped to the side, allowing Ran to catch sight of the young ward of the Mouris covered from head to toe in putrefied flesh and looking very disgruntled. Without her father acting as a barrier against the full force of the odor, Ran – who had stood her own against full-grown men with ease – was nearly bowled over by it, stumbling back and only just catching herself from falling by clutching the edge of a desk.

"What gives?!" she screamed, eyes watering and a hand clasped over her mouth and nose.

"The case was also the brat's fault. He stepped on a damaged patch of flooring which, of course, was concealing a hiding spot for a corpse," Kogoro scowled down at Conan, who glared right back at him. Not only did the shrunken teen take exception to being called a brat, but if anything he had more right to be offended by the series of events than the puppet detective. (Sadly enough though, this wasn't the first time this had happened to either Conan or Shinichi by a long shot (although this was the first time the corpse had blown up all over him, courtesy of a nearby minor explosive), so perhaps he was not as upset by his current state as he should be.)

"And he was brought back here _like this_," Ran gestured strongly at Conan, "_why?_"

"Division One said they had enough on their hands already and we were almost back anyway. But Takagi-san was kind enough to give us the air freshener from his car," deadpanned Ran's father, pointing at the pine fresh-smelling object hanging from an elastic band around Conan's neck. It didn't really help with the stench, though.

"I give up. You, clean up _now_. _Thoroughly,_" Ran ordered her little brother figure. Although she was keeping her distance Ran still somehow made it seem as if she was looming menacingly over Conan. Only he'd had enough attitude for one day and wasn't going to stand for this.

"I don't know . . . maybe I like being like this. I think it can wait another day," Conan stretched his arms above his head as if tired, and before the other two could object he walked past them and plopped down on one of the couches.

Although it was only meant as teasing, it turned out that he actually was tired, for Conan fell asleep a moment later.

Neither willing to touch him and all attempts with loud noises failing, Ran and Kogoro ended up staying the night at a motel.

And this is how the Mouri Detective Agency got new couches (and a lingering smell that won't go away), and why Conan smells faintly like a zombie to this day.

**A/N: Because dead mom is so overused that it has to be reinvented. I've been on a supernatural kick for a while now, also. Yes, zombie was the odd smell in the house. Thanks to Ten-Faced for one of our conversations having this idea pop up, in addition to encouraging me to write it. Oh, and thank you readers new and old to this collection who have been awaiting new installments; I'm a capricious writer, but I really don't mean to keep you guys waiting for updates.**


	11. Murder is My Favorite Flavor

**Disclaimer: I do not own Detective Conan.**

Oneshot Eleven

Murder is My Favorite Flavor

"Come on, Conan-kun, ice cream!"

The not-child turned to stare at the enthused girl yanking on his arm before noticing the storefront behind her. One of the windows was emblazoned with glossy posters advertising the treats within in garish colors, while the other was bare and allowed a glimpse of the counter and the tubs of ice cream.

"Really?" he deadpanned, but allowed himself to be tugged along with his only resistance being to set the pace.

The shop bell tinkled merrily as they entered, Ai trailing behind the two and smirking at Conan's back. He resolutely ignored her amusement at Ayumi's antics.

"I'm not a huge fan of ice cream," Conan professed, albeit he had to admit that the cool interior of the store was a relief on that summer day, even if the sugary smell that permeated the entire place seemed enough on its own to give him diabetes.

"How can you not like ice cream?" Genta bellowed, hopping down from the stool he sat upon to accusingly shove his face into Conan's. The shrunken teen supposed it might have been threatening, if he were an actual child and not faced with criminals on a daily basis.

"It's not that I don't like it, but it's too sweet," the detective said, nose crinkling up.

A chuckle followed by an unfamiliar voice interrupted them.

"What's this; a child that doesn't like ice cream? Now I've seen it all!"

Conan looked up to see that an adult dressed in the shop uniform had approached him and his young friends while they were distracted by his claim. The man's eyes were closed and he was smiling widely.

"They have mystery flavor," Ai, who had wandered off to examine the option of flavors, told Conan.

"Oh yes, those are fun! It's become a popular selection as of late. A lot of flavors are exclusive to it, and you never quite know what to expect," the employee beamed at him.

"Well, I do like mysteries," Conan relented, "I'll have a small cone."

A few moments later he received his treat and money had exchanged hands. Conan took a seat at the counter and scrutinized the flavors chosen by the other Detective Boys. Genta had a large bowl that was mostly chocolate, Mitsuhiko had a vanilla ice cream cone, and Ayumi's ice cream was an eye-watering pink that he might have guessed was strawberry had he not noticed the chunks of bubblegum embedded in it. He then looked to his own, an eyebrow quirking upwards.

His was a purplish-red with darker swirls going through it, and he had no idea what flavor it could possibly be just by appearance. It certainly did not look like something that a kid would order. With a shrug, he took a tentative bite. Immediately afterwards he took another one, much larger this time. The flavor was rich and smooth, with an almost tangy taste to it that left an almost bitter aftertaste tingling across his tongue.

"Enjoying your ice cream?" Ai asked, taking in Conan's reaction as she ate her own.

"Mm. Best I've ever had. Although . . ."

"What is it?"

"I could swear it's almost familiar, but I don't know what it is," Conan admitted almost grudgingly.

"Shocker; something that the great detective can't figure out?" Ai mock-gasped, the glare that Conan leveled at her deflected coolly.

"Shut up," he wrinkled his nose at her, taking another bite of his ice cream as he turned away to observe the man behind the counter. He was the only employee in the shop that they had seen yet, and his eyes were still closed with that perpetual smile on his face. Conan idly wondered if the man's face was stuck like that.

As he drew near the not-child detective addressed him,

"Ne, what flavor is this?"

The ice cream man stopped in the middle of cleaning the display glass, directing his full attention at Conan.

"Murder," he stated, eyes opening marginally to permit a red gleam to escape through, lips parting in a broader smile that pulled his cheeks back inhumanly far and revealed jagged teeth (which he could have sworn were normal when the man had spoken earlier). A shudder passed through Conan and he whipped his head around, only to find that the only other people in the store – his companions – were too absorbed in their ice cream or interactions with one another to notice the sudden change. When Conan snapped his head back the employee had returned to normal and was giving no indication that anything strange had happened.

"Did you see that?" Conan hissed, elbowing Ai in the ribs. She frowned with displeasure at him.

"See what?"

The not-child sighed, wondering if he was going crazy.

"Nothing."

The strawberry blonde girl stared at him for a couple moments longer before returning to her small cup of ice cream.

"Say, what flavor is yours anyway?" she inquired after a pause, filled with the sounds of the real kid members of the Detective Boys jabbering excitedly to one another and the clicking of the shopkeeper's shoes on the tiled floor as he bustled about. Conan's head jerked up in a startled fashion and, rather than answer, opted to take another bite of his ice cream.

Mmm . . . murder. It really was good despite his doubts.

Shortly afterwards everyone finished their treats and started out. Conan was the last to file out, and as he left so he could have sworn that the man attending to the store called out to him,

"Our kind has to take care of one another. Have a nice day!"

But when he looked back the ice cream store was just gone. In its place was a vacant lot that opened into three alleys in addition to the street they were on. Not even a hint of the eye-wateringly colorful posters was to be seen.

"Hey guys, where did that store go just now?" he hurried up to rejoin the rest of the group.

"What store?" Ayumi's head tilted in a display of her bemusement.

"Yeah, what are you talking about? We were just heading to the professor's place from school!" Genta exclaimed loudly.

Mitsuhiko and Ai were just staring at him, the first as if he was crazy and the latter in a scrutinizing manner.

Pinching the bridge of his nose in frustration, Conan told the others to forget about it, and the matter was still dropped.

As they walked on though, he couldn't help but hear a bell chiming in the breeze and taste the ghost of murder dancing over his taste buds.

**A/N: Because Ten-Faced told me to write this. It was meant to be uploaded yesterday, but eh. Also, check out my poll? It could influence future updates to Collection.**


	12. The Reaper Has Arrived

**Disclaimer: I do not own Detective Conan.**

Oneshot Twelve

The Reaper Has Arrived

"Conan-kun, would you do a favor for me?" Ran poked her head into the office of the detective agency, where her young ward was sprawled out on a couch reading a Sherlock Holmes novel. At her voice Conan looked up, slipping his bookmark into the book and shutting it before setting the novel aside.

"What is it?" he inquired, attention now undivided.

"I have to finish cleaning up here, so could you take this to Takeda-san? He lives a few blocks down." Ran held out a legitimate scythe. At Conan's long gaze at the blade she said, "Don't worry, it's not sharp. It's actually a decoration in his grocery store. Dad took it in one of his drunken states and promised to return it."

The not-child snorted, wondering how Ran – who was blushing with embarrassment for her father – could have turned out even with a father like hers. Then again, she did have to take care of him, so maybe that was it.

Realizing that his childhood friend was waiting for an answer, Conan chirped, "Sure thing! It's the organic grocery store, right?"

"That's the one." Obviously relieved at having one of several tasks lifted off her shoulders, Ran passed the farming implement to Conan with care. While not that large for an adult, the scythe was considerably taller than Conan, who rested it against a shoulder to ease the weight.

"I'll be back soon." The shrunken teen started heading out, only pausing to heed Ran's shout that followed after him to put on some protection against the bad weather. He quickly donned the first suitable garment – a black rain poncho that came down past his knees, hood raised over his head – and left.

"Wow, the weather really is bad. No wonder why Ran foisted this onto me," Conan commented to himself under his breath as he progressed down the street. It was nearly vacant of pedestrians and even cars, people preferring to wait out the deluge in the comfort of their homes. Beats of thunder drummed at frequent intervals, and braving a look up the detective saw light flickering like snakes through the dark clouds that roiled over the city.

He stopped, and placed the scythe vertical to the ground because his shoulder and arms were becoming tired, when he noticed a crowd of people gathered around a single spot on the street. Actually, they were the force from Division One, and he could just make out through their legs a body and a pool of blood.

"Megure-keibu, Takagi-keiji, Sato-keiji!" Conan called out to the three he was closest to. Their attention drawn, they turned to see a scythe-holding hooded figure clad in black. The hairs on the backs of their necks rose, the terror that was creeping up on them becoming spontaneously magnified as a tongue of white lightning lanced down with a jarring peal of thunder, limning the blade of the scythe with an eerie light and illuminating the face under the hood as Conan's.

"I told you! I told you this boy was the Angel of Death!" Inspector Megure shouted, and in a most unprofessional manner he and the rest of the policemen fled the scene, leaving only Conan and the dead person behind.

Conan remained standing there for several moments, an eye and a corner of his lips twitching, before he noticed that he was left alone with the corpse. Seeing that this was a rare chance in which he would not be interrupted, the not-child got to work.

**A/N: That ending can be interpreted in more than one way. This idea just leapt into my head and I couldn't help but burst into laughter before having to write it.**

**. . . and it just started thundering where I live.**


	13. Loophole

**Disclaimer: I do not own Detective Conan.**

Oneshot Thirteen

Loophole

Heiji frowned as Conan sighed once more, kicking his feet as they dangled from the tall stool upon which he was seated. His friend had been like this ever since he had dropped in for a surprise visit. The dark-skinned teen scowled; he did not come all this way just so that Kudo could act all forlorn on him.

"Come on, what's wrong?" he asked after the pseudo-child did another one of those unhappy little sighs. Conan turned to face him.

"What do you mean?"

"Yer best friend is in town and we're out for a bite at one o' da best diners around, and yet here ya are with tha' expression on yer face, like . . . like somebody stole yer ice cream from ya!" Heiji accused.

"Ice cream, Hattori? I wouldn't get so upset over that," said the shrunken detective with a sniff. Heiji could have sworn though that he heard him mumble something afterwards about murder and demon shopkeepers. What was that about?

Whatever, Kudo was just weird like that.

"Then what is it? Wait, lemme guess; yer sulkin' over bein' little again, ain't ya?"

"I don't sulk, I _brood_," Conan stated seriously.

"Right, right," Heiji chuckled, ignoring the glare that the not-boy shot at him.

The awkward silence from before resumed after this small exchange. The Osakan twitched as, after a few minutes of poking at his fries, his friend sighed once more.

"Out with it!" he snapped, grabbing Conan by the collar and forcing him to look up at him. Hearing disapproving mumbling, Heiji looked around to see that the other people in the diner were staring at him and Kudo with concern – for the latter – and anger. The last was directed only at him. Rubbing the back of his head sheepishly with his free hand, the larger teen relinquished his much smaller friend.

Ah well, at least he finally got his answer, as Conan started speaking.

"If you must know, Ran has banned me from going around sniffing out murder cases. I'm not allowed to diverge from my daily schedule at all without supervision. In other words, I'm _grounded _of all things," Conan explained. Heiji winced.

"Tha' _sucks_." Being just as obsessive as Conan, Heiji knew what it was like to be held back from investigation. Not fun. Not to mention that being grounded by one's sorta-girlfriend had to be mortifying. Come to think of it, when was the last time before being shrunk that Kudo had been grounded? The guy had been living on his own for a couple of years, after all, and his parents didn't seem like the kind to care if their child was a hellion wreaking havoc in the streets.

"Are you ready for me to–" the waitress that had come up to them at the moment suddenly clutched at the area over her heart before keeling over onto the counter in-between them.

She was dead.

The corpse's face was close to Conan's own, and he could smell the bitter almond scent characteristic of cyanide on her. He looked up at Heiji and mouthed 'cyanide' at him, paying no heed to the screams and strangled yelps of surprise that came from around them.

Heiji nodded as he came to the same conclusion that his friend had.

Murder.

He was just about to start investigating when something occurred to him.

"Does that punishment of yers count a murder case comin' up ta ya?"

"You know, she never clarified."

"Then technically she can't punish ya further until she says so. Come on, you need to cheer up."Heiji patted the eastern detective on the back.

"Now this is why you're my bro." Conan grinned, and together they started working on their new case.

**A/N: Why did I write this at five this morning? No clue. Anyway, sorry for taking forever to update, but rest assured that I have not been slacking! I've just been working on story planning and long chapters for various stories. Already cut out around five thousand words from the second part of the first chapter of The Wolf, rewrote most of it, and added in and removed scenes as the whim struck.**


	14. A Familiar Situation

**Disclaimer: I do not own Detective Conan or Magic Kaito.**

Oneshot Fourteen

A Familiar Situation

Shinichi stumbled as quickly as he could down the sidewalks, his screams wrenched as panicked yowls from his throat.

_No, no, no, this could not be, it couldn't! This wasn't possible!_

This was the only thing that dominated his mind as he progressed falteringly, and had since he had first woken up to find himself in dark cloth confines and incapable of standing. When he had writhed his way free, what the teen had found was very unsettling: he was much shorter, and his legs had become unusually jointed and covered in a feathery coat of thick fur. Further inspection, disbelieving in the way that he hoped it was a bad trip from the drug he had been force-fed, revealed that the rest of his body as far as he could see was the same, complete with an _extra appendage that he refused to acknowledge as a tail_.

Shinichi came to pause in front of a storefront as the exhaustion from his exertion finally hit him, the adrenaline that had been fueling him ebbing away and leaving his limbs leaden and heart trembling in its wake.

Unfamiliar legs (_four!)_ giving way, the once-boy collapsed, body slumping against the side of the building he had stopped before. Shinichi rubbed a cheek against the cool glass of the massive window on which he was leaning, holding it there to let the cool surface provide relief; albeit the night was cold, he felt too warm beneath his new fur, overheated from his awkward falling-running.

After regaining mostly his breath, Shinichi straightened himself before settling on his haunches, wincing as his tail – no, _the_ tail, as it certainly wasn't his – swept to curl around one of his sides and cover his paws. _Paws_.

This had better just be a bad trip. Not that Shinichi had any personal experience regarding recreational drug use to know what one was like.

Shinichi lifted a forepaw, the sensitive pads covered by long tufts of fur that had kept them somewhat protected from concrete and asphalt despite the lack of callouses. First wiggling the toes on this paw, the not-cat then unsheathed his claws, which was an unfamiliar but not unsatisfactory sensation. His recent thought forgotten, he repeated the motion a few times before recalling what it was that he had wanted to do.

A moment of recollection and the detective-turned-cat placed a claw against his leg and dragged it through thick fur and across the skin beneath. Hissing at the ensuing pain, Shinichi wrenched his paw away, staring at the blood beaded on his claw.

Alright, so this wasn't a dream.

Retracting his claws, Shinichi turned to the shop window to his right, startling blue eyes with little sclera and impossibly large pupils staring wide-eyed back at him from a feline face, sharp angles and sweeping contours veiled by the fur that fanned out from his cheeks and trailed like a beard from his chin to form a ruffled appearance similar to an ascot poofing out. The fur was similar on the rest of the body, save for the crown and a side of his head, which was plastered into mostly-flat spikes with drying blood.

He was a cat. To be more exact, he was a very fluffy cat, with fur so black that it was difficult to distinguish from the night gloom in the dark windowpane. The only good thing about this situation was that he was not dead like he should be.

Then again, he was a cat. He really shouldn't be a cat. For that matter, he must have broken some scientific law when he turned into a cat.

Somehow Shinichi couldn't find it in himself to panic anymore. He was tired, confused, and in an unfavorable situation. He needed to assess the situation and find out where to go from here.

Unfortunately for the altered detective, he did not even get the chance to start before something wrapped around his stomach and swept him onto his back. Releasing an alarmed cry in surprise, Shinichi flailed his limbs – _he was falling!_ – until he found himself safely ensconced in some sort of hold. Taken aback by this sudden turn of events, Shinichi ceased his struggles and folded his limbs close into his body. Looking up, he was met by a face, which was frighteningly large taking into account Shinichi's new form, craned downwards for a better view at him.

A female teenager, pale-skinned with red eyes and hair that a passing vehicle's headlights revealed to be not black as first impression had suggested, but in actuality a very dark red with a brighter sheen when hit with light. All this Shinichi had catalogued in a moment. (In addition to the fact that it was strange he could make out the unusual color of her hair and eyes in the first place, since he had thought cats unable to see reds.)

Great, he was caught by a _girl_. He knew what girls did to cats! They hugged them, called them stupid names, and even forced them into the most ridiculous outfits ever! Worst of all, took photos of them for terrible internet memes!

Shinichi _refused_ to be made into a stupid internet sensation. No way, no how!

Crinkling his muzzle and furrowing his brow to give what he hoped was the most evil glare he could possibly produce in this body, Shinichi hissed menacingly and unsheathed his claws once more. He would prefer not to scratch a girl (having had too many cases involving retrieving a wayward cat when young, the high school detective was all too familiar with how painful they could be), but he would if dissuasion wouldn't work.

For that matter, Shinichi was just working at squirming his way out of the unwelcome grasp when he stopped, an inhalation bringing in the girl's scent.

Shinichi had noticed it in the back of his mind during his flight from the scene of his transformation, but being a cat had introduced him to a whole new perspective concerning smells. Now though it was blatantly clear, and it was difficult to articulate how this girl smelled in particular. If he had to put words to it . . . it was like bitter herbs cast into a fire; recently shed snakeskin; strong incense that could not quite mask a smell reminiscent of rot; and underlying this was something that he had never experienced the likes of before, something teasingly near-palpable that tingled in his mouth and nose like stars before sparking over his skin. It was a sensation unto itself.

Transfixed, he had not noticed that he had relaxed and been shifted into a more comfortable position until a small hand ran itself across his back, the long svelte fingers carding through his fur with the manicured nails grazing his skin in heavenly scratching motions.

"You're definitely not a stray," the girl said to him in a low voice. Shinichi ceased his purring (and when had he started in the first place? He realized with mortification) to twist his neck around to glare at her once more. He was not a pet!

She only snickered at his look.

"Of course, I did not mean to imply that you're owned; no cat is, although mortals are fools to think so," the red-haired girl reassured Shinichi.

Mortals? The not-cat wasn't sure whether to be relieved or not by who had picked him up. It didn't seem like the girl was interested in owning him, if her comment was anything to go by, but at the same time she appeared to be suffering from delusions of a sort, which did not comfort him considering that he was in her arms. For all Shinichi knew she was a budding serial killer.

"That being said though, you do make for good familiars. Much easier to take care of than snakes, and to take places also. That is a mistake I will never make again. Alas, poor Yorick."

Familiars? Snakes? Shinichi couldn't help it; working a foreleg free he facepalmed (facepawed? Facepadded?) before trying to free himself from her hold once more. His efforts were squashed as the teen only tightened her grip on him.

"Now stop that, you should be honored that a witch of my caliber would consider you a worthy familiar; though it is true that black cats such as yourself are especially powerful concerning black magic, the only reason I even noticed you was that strange magic I felt."

Magic? Now this was just ridiculous! He needed to get away before she tortured and killed him! Struggles intensified, Shinichi was almost free when a chill washed over him, followed by his muscles seizing up (well, that was not quite true; his organs still seemed to be functioning fine) and refusing to budge even just a millimeter. _What was happening? Why could he no longer move?_

"Stop being so rude!" Shinichi's captor snapped, moving an arm from where it held him so that she could flick him sharply on the nose with a finger. Had Shinichi been capable of moving he would have bitten her, girl or not.

"Now, this might feel a little strange, but it will not harm you."

No, Shinichi was not reassured by this at all, not when she had already done something to him that robbed him of movement.

Incapable of protesting with so much as a mewl, he attempted to brace himself for whatever was to come – only to flinch internally as that whatever was something he had never before experienced (which certainly fit with the rest of the mess his life had become so recently).

The _energy_, or _power,_ or even just _sensation_ – whatever one wanted to call it – seeped in through Shinichi's pores like warm butter, only burrowing hungrily into him before it sank into his muscles and scuttled across his bones like an onslaught of spiders. It scurried rapidly throughout his body, finding its way into the bloodstream and infiltrating it. Shinichi gasped inside at the sensation, effervescent like sea spray or carbonated soda, before it brushed against something already there, something that had not existed to Shinichi's knowledge.

It was angry and bristling, cold and blue, shadowed and, for lack of a better word, smelling of petrichor. Something bright red and tasting of acrid poison was latched onto this first part of it, stretching across like a growth of crystals. It . . . just _it_, appealed to the senses in a way that it shouldn't, for even now Shinichi could feel_ its_ lack of tangibility.

The first sensation receded, ebbing out like waves as low tide neared. And then he could move. Shinichi blinked, shaking his head and blinking upwards at the girl bemusedly. She too appeared startled.

"You _are_ the most unusual specimen I have come across, disregarding Kuroba. As I thought, you do have a curse on you, though it is not of human origins. What I did not expect was that your magic may be feline, but it acts much more human-like than anything else. This must be why you did not sense me before."

Magic. Could it possibly be?

In any case, Shinichi did not like the predatory look that the girl (witch?) had adopted as she withdrew from her thoughts to fix him with a broad grin.

"A cat with the ability to control their magic like a human! I could not ask for a better familiar!"

"No!" Shinichi wanted to yell, but instead all that came out was a loud meow. Before he could think of using his returned control over his body to escape the girl was already carting him off down a nearby alley. Finding a crate with tall sides she maneuvered it with her feet and the hand not clutching the cat tightly close to her until it opened at the top. She placed Shinichi inside and then set down the bag she'd had slung over one of her shoulders the entire time, opening it up and rummaging through it while Shinichi scrabbled to climb out of his newfound confines futilely with his still awkward, and much smaller, new body.

"Aha!" Shinichi was not paying attention to the witch, preferring to focus on his current dilemma. Escaping her could be focused on after escaping the box.

"I, Koizumi Akako, heiress of the Scarlet Arts, declare upon my magic that this feline is my familiar, with the shedding of my blood in which my magic resides so mote it be." A metallic flash from the girl's – Akako's – direction brought Shinichi's attention back to her, just in time to see a hand with a bleeding cut in the palm reach over and grab him by the scruff of his neck. The other hand held a knife – a boline, he would later find it was called – faintly illuminated by a streetlight beyond the opening of the alley. A couple drops of blood dripped from its blade.

She held Shinichi steady, pinning him still her hand and arm pressing against him. Shinichi squeezed his eyes shut.

_So long world, it was nice knowing you as a human._ A second thought occurred to him. _Sorry, Ran, that I never returned._

He felt the knife slice across his scalp, followed by a hand pressing across where it had cut.

"By the magic residing in our blood, the pact of witch and familiar is formed with the intermingling of our blood, so mote it be."

The hand lifted off of his head. After feeling nothing but the slight sting of the incision made, and that strange power that had invaded his body before seep into him much more soothingly than before, Shinichi dared to open an eye. Akako, who was crouched before him, smiled and quickly lifted him out of the crate, setting him down on the ground outside it.

"See, that wasn't bad at all! You should be honored to have such an opportunity as serving under I, Koizumi Akako of the Scarlet Arts!" Akako started laughing in the impression of an obnoxious noble lady, a hand raised to a side of her face.

Shinichi was just about to bolt when she said something that stopped him.

"After teaching you how to speak you will become a very valuable familiar, I feel."

The teen-turned-cat froze with a leg still lifted in the air. Could she do that? Could magic allow a cat to speak as a human?

Lost in the possibilities, Shinichi acquiesced to following Akako out of the alley, albeit he made disgruntled noises and pouted as best a cat could when she picked him up once more, this time being carried away off the street.

Well, this was better than nothing. He would be getting a home and all the trappings that came with it, so perhaps this was more conducive to his goals in the long-run than other circumstances would have been. He had been meaning to assess the situation, after all. Not to mention what else was he supposed to do? Try to get into his house, realize the difficulty of it, and then somehow convince Agasa-hakase that he was Shinichi?

Yeah, no. Who would believe a cat, even if he could communicate? It was a preposterous idea. As preposterous as magic, Shinichi reflected, but if he could be turned into a cat by some sort of shady poison then why should he rule out actual magic? In fact, considering the witch's mention of the 'curse' on him, perhaps the poison itself was magic.

Alright, so maybe Agasa-hakase would believe it with a little prodding, but it still wasn't a viable option.

Exhausted from the long day with all its hectic occurrences, Shinichi found himself falling asleep as he was carted off to his new home. Or rather, base of operation as he preferred to think of it as.

**A/N: Yeah . . . this came from the fact that there are several "*insert character* turns into a cat" stories across many fandoms and most of them don't seem to have a plot or take things in an original direction. So this is a reaction to those fics. No offense to people who have written them, and I have found a few that I've enjoyed.**

**Next time on A Familiar Situation: Beginning magic lessons! Introductions to magicians! Does being a cat make Shinichi even more devious than before, and will Shinichi ever get along with Akako's demonic servant? All this and more!**

**Lol, no. I'm probably not going to write anymore of this story. About four hundred words in and I had already become mostly frustrated with writing it.**


	15. Tattoo

**Disclaimer: I do not own Detective Conan.**

Oneshot Fifteen

Tattoo

Conan sighed as he tossed yet another garishly colored shirt with a sickeningly cute animal caricature onto the pile of rejects. He _hated_ being a child once more, and had discovered that shopping with Ran was torture no matter his age (apparent or otherwise).

"Conan-kun, I have some more shirts for you to try on! I even found one with Kamen Yaiba on it!" Ran announced from outside the changing stall, a bundle of children's clothing draped across an arm.

Suppressing a groan, the boy instead chirped a happy response in reply and gathered up the many denied articles of clothing, all the while wondering if living with his sorta-girlfriend was always going to be like this; it had only been a few days since he had shrunk and already the strain of keeping up his act was getting to him.

He was just about to reach for and don his shirt when he realized that would mean setting down his current burden. Not particularly wanting to – Conan just really wanted to get this shopping trip over with – Conan instead shrugged his shoulders. Ran had seen him shirtless before, and it hardly mattered when he was in the body of a child. Stomach curdling at the thought, Conan shook his head to cast it from mind, and instead opened the dressing room door.

Smiling at her charge, Ran relieved him of the rejected clothes – tutting at how he'd refused so many of them; he really needed more, and at this rate it would take all day to assemble a wardrobe – and handed off the new ones to Conan. She was just about to leave when the child turned his back to her.

"_Conan-kun!"_ Ran made a funny strangled sound, as if her exclamation had started out as a scream but got caught somewhere on the way out.

"Hm?"

"Why do you have a tattoo?" Ran choked out after her lips worked silently, pitch rising with every syllable.

A cold wave hit Conan before scalding heat rushed to his cheeks. He had forgotten about that! Not that he particularly wanted to remember; the story of how he got a giant tattoo across his back depicting a buxom blonde riding a velociraptor which had a mohawk made of fire while shooting Martian invaders with an assault rifle was a very embarrassing one that involved Hawaii, his father, and alcohol.

"Err, Hawaiian religious tradition?" Conan stammered on the spot.

Ran stared at him for several long moments before shaking her head.

"Americans are weird." She decided, and left the stall, shutting the door behind her and leaving Conan to privacy once more.

Heart still racing in his chest, the detective-turned-boy slumped against the dressing room mirror. In the process of turning to the most recent clothing to try on he stopped, eyes widening as he caught sight of his back in the mirror.

"_I don't recall getting a tattoo of the Night Baron!" _he hollered.

**Omake:**

The first thing Shinichi did after returning to his proper age was enter a tattoo parlor. Later, Ran would come to discover his tattoos and ask him why it was that he had the exact same ones as Conan, to which he would point out that no, it was not the same tattoo. After all, Shinichi's tattoo had a swanky moustache on the woman, which Conan's did not have.

"Hawaiian religious tradition?" Ran deadpanned.

"Exactly," said Shinichi straight-facedly. His girlfriend stared long at him, but when his expression did not break she turned away with a sigh.

"You really need to stop going to Hawaii."

"Trust me, I know."

Shinichi never did find out where that second tattoo came from, though he suspected it was his father's doing.

**A/N: I have no regrets. Yet another idea sprung when I should be sleeping (considering how little rest I'm getting these days, this is probably the reason for the deluge of crack-fics). Oh, and there's a new poll on my profile; it will probably help determine which full-fledged stories I have planned will receive the most frequent updating.**


	16. Letdown

**Disclaimer: I do not own Detective Conan. If I did, this would totally be the ending, though.**

Oneshot Sixteen

Letdown

Conan stared at the small white pill in hand. This was it, what he had been waiting for so many long months for!

"Is this real?" he asked, afraid that the universe was playing a joke on him.

"As amusing as it would be to get your hopes up only to smash them to itty-bitty pieces, yes; that is the permanent antidote to apoptoxin-4869," Ai stated drily. When her fellow shrunken teen made no move to take it she scowled.

"Go into the bathroom and take it already. That way I will know if it will kill you instead of curing you."

Nodding, Conan walked into the nearby bathroom in a daze, shutting the door behind him. Ai started looking over the sheaf of papers that documented everything she needed to know about the antidote as she drank a mug of coffee, keeping an ear out for the screams that were soon to come.

Only instead of screams of agony there was a furious shout. The loud and unexpected noise startled Ai, who jerked from surprise and ended up spilling her drink over her notes.

"What gives?" the scientist demanded through the bathroom door with a scowl.

After a few choice cusswords on the detective's part, the door opened to reveal Conan rather than Shinichi.

"I dropped the pill down the drain," he admitted ruefully.

Ai deadpanned at him.

". . . Seriously?"

"Sadly enough. May I have another?"

The not-girl took a sip of what little remained in the mug of her coffee.

"Unfortunately, that was the only one I made, and it just so happens that your little outburst destroyed the hardcopy of my notes, which was the only one remaining after Agasa-hakase's computer died last week. Ask me again in a few months." With that, Ai walked off with an aloof air.

"Oi, oi, wait; you can't be serious!" Conan scrambled after her after recovering his wits.


	17. Phoenix

**Disclaimer: I do not own Magic Kaito.**

Oneshot Seventeen

Phoenix

In the red light of Pandora, his old life had been burned away.

Black feathers, passed down to him from his father, were shed and replaced by living flames.

The world had come to pass as a single flowing movement.

He didn't care.

Because he does not remember it, save for streaks of bright colors. Riotous flashing tinsel. The chime of a clock and a bell. Fragrant smoke tickling his nostrils.

Instead he sleeps for a long, long time.

He can never be sure whenever he awakes, and he doesn't think he ever quite does.

He recalls a river of stars, and wonders if he can cross over it to a field of perfumed flowers. He sees figures standing among their ranks, always waiting for him.

Some stand so close to the bank, he feels that he would just have to reach out to take hold of their vying hands.

Just stretch a little more . . .

And then the world turns black, and strange colors and shapes spiral slowly overhead.

He watches as the wheel turns, and everything cycles many times.

The cosmogyral skyward displays seem so vast, that they could last forever.

But then even they drop from the wheel.

And new ones come to take their place.

And eventually they too take their leave.

Forevermore he endures.

Always sitting, or curled fetal.

Nestled in jagged ice, flowers only a remembrance.

A mimicry of potential life.

He tries to recapture it.

The warmth so denied.

And in his dreams,

In the stirring of his soul,

Those frozen sands whisper to him, the way that his life piled up, shaped by mother-hands and father-hands and child-hands that may have belonged to a girl.

Voices that slip through one ear and echo in his head before gliding out the other, ghost-like they cannot be caught.

A blur where a face should be, sometimes among the muted colors and vague outlines he can catch a glimpse of history.

He does not recall these things, but his soul does, and every fleeting repetition of what might have once been repeats the impressions, emanations of something that existed only in his mind if that.

And sometimes, he almost rouses from the indistinct, blearily, as if rising from sleep if he ever does.

And he almost ponders his existence, if he does and ever did have one. He knows that he was born.

He wonders why they should remain with him,

When they mean nothing now,

For as there is no one to recognize him,

He Does Not Exist.

But he is sure that he was born, nevertheless,

And if he ever is allowed to cross those stars,

Will he recognize those who wait on him forevermore?

Will he step onto the wheel and fly off it aloft wings of black?

How can he continue burning?

It is simple: because fire does not live, only mocks.

And he does not live.

**A/N: I only uploaded this because people told me to. This isn't the original formatting of this installment either.**


	18. Some Mornings

**Disclaimer: I do not own Detective Conan.**

Oneshot Eighteen

Some Mornings

Upon awaking, Shinichi grumbled as he groggily rolled out of bed, stumbling as he landed on his feet. Balance feeling off, he rubbed his eyes as he stumbled to the full-length mirror hanging on the door of the hotel room that he and Heiji were sharing. Only instead of showing a teenage boy, Shinichi was apparently now a teenage girl.

". . . Huh," he remarked intelligently when he saw his appearance, taking note that perhaps this was the cause of his lack of grace. Just to confirm, Shinichi pulled the collar of his pajama top forward and peered down. Yep, his – or rather, her – suspicions were correct.

"Oi, Kudo, is that you?" Heiji asked as he stared at his roommate, squinting in the watery dawn light.

"Yeah."

The darker-skinned teen's gaze remained on Shinichi, brows furrowed as he sorted out his thoughts.

"So, how long have ya been a girl?" he finally inquired.

"Since this morning, apparently." Was the dry response.

"Ah . . ."

Moments of silence passed in which Shinichi continued staring at his (or was it her? Xyr?) reflection, taking note of the feminized features and how they compared to xyr original masculine ones. Slighter build, fuller cheeks, wider eyes, and hair with more volume and a touch of his mother's curls. Still recognizably Shinichi, for which xe was thankful.

"You think my parents can still get refunds on those 'it's a boy' balloons and other similar miscellanea from my birth?" was what xe finally asked when xe broke the awkward silence. Heiji rolled over in disbelief and ended up falling out of bed with a loud thud and the issuing of not-so polite words.

"After what, seventeen years? I doubt they even still have the receipts."

"Yeah, you're right."

"Seriously, what is wrong with ya? Yer takin' this whole spontaneous gender change a bit too well."

"It's early in the morning and I am just done with this sort of crap. I figure this is the universe messing with me again."

"It really hates keepin' ya in one shape for long, doesn't it?"

"At this point I'm just thankful that I'm still human."

"Well, let's go get breakfast." Heiji suggested after accepting his eastern counterpart's reasoning with the aloof air of one accustomed to such bizarre happenings. It really was too early to make a big deal about these things.

Shinichi shrugged.

"Sounds good."

**A/N: My first genderbender. I should write a real one sooner or later. Actually, I need to. Xe and xyr are gender-neutral pronouns, meaning he/she/one and his/her/theirs respectively.**

**I was actually considering turning starting a collection of short oneshots set in this universe off of this one. What do you guys think? Yes or no? It'd just be a side-project, but would help from keeping Collection cluttered.**


	19. Even Giants Must Awake

**Disclaimer: I do not own Magic Kaito.**

Oneshot Nineteen

Even Giants Must Awake

The black bound fast his limbs. It kept secrets from his vision and was a pressure that weighed him down.

His heart gave a mighty beat and began to flutter, a butterfly in harried flight. It resounded in his ears like the swelling of the ocean and the tattoo of a wardrum, his veins painfully pounded wide as if with hammers.

Suffocation set in, cotton stuffed down his throat.

_Air, need air!_

_He was drowning._

_Which way was the surface?_

Abrupt motion, falling into an upwards swoop not of his willing.

He broke through the surface with a gasp.

"Kaito!"

He jolted upright and drew in a breath until his lungs could not take any more. The air shuddered down his trachea like a desert wind, arid and scouring with the grit it bore. Collapsing in upon himself, coughs wracked Kaito's body for several moments before becoming tolerable. He straightened out, panting from the exertion before.

"Aoko?" he rasped as he looked to and from her and Hakuba. Both were in front of him, kneeling to be at his level. Their eyes, round as full moons, did not quite meet his, and their complexions possessed a pallor he had never seen of a living person. Hakuba's jaw was uncharacteristically dropped, and the look of undisguised shock brought a smile to Kaito's face.

It was shaky. He was missing something here.

"You," Hakuba's voice incredulously trembled, "you were _shot._"

_Walking with Aoko and Hakuba after school._

Brows furrowing – something was on his face, and it itched – as he looked down to see civilian clothes. Not a heist.

_A glimpse of black, flitting around a corner._

He wasn't getting much more than flashes of recollection. He made to scratch his nose, paused as he encountered something encrusted upon it.

_They neared the end of the street, and there was a flash of light with a blur._

With a fingernail he flaked some off, raised it to his line of vision to find that it was dried blood. He returned his attention to his friends, comprehension starting to dawn and mirrored by eyes widening.

_A loud noise. Pain bloomed, a fire leaping forth._

Aoko rummaged through her bag, withdrew a compact mirror. She pried it open, held it up for Kaito to look at.

_A scream, a shout, and then many screams._

Dead center of his forehead was a hole, the flesh around it deformed. Blood was smeared around the wound and had flowed down his face some, like ghastly war-paint applied by the crude hands of a child.

_Red. Time was nothing to anything._

"You were _dead_," Hakuba continued to insist, his words echoing their predecessors over and again seemingly without end.

_Breathing hurts._

"I don't know."

Sirens sounded in the distance, rapidly becoming louder.

**A/N: Had this idea at two in the morning, so I wrote it. Not quite my usual writing style; I'm not sure how I feel about it.**


End file.
